Defending the Christian faith and promoting its wisdom against the secular and religious challenges of our day.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Confidence in Our Four Canonical Gospel Accounts

Why should we be confident that our four canonical Gospels –
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – are the very Gospels that our Lord would want us
to have? Skepticism about this was given new life in 1946 when the Gnostic
Gospels (GG) were uncovered at an Egyptian site – Nag Hamadi. Although we had
already known about these “gospels” from the writings of the Church Fathers,
who excoriated them, in many cases, this was the first time that scholars
actually had them in hand.

Since then, some extreme voices have declared that these “gospels”
are just as valid as the Biblical ones. Dan Brown’s fictional work, The DaVinci Code, even expounded the
position that the church had used all of these “gospels” until the Council of
Nicea in 315 when they were finally banned. However, there are many compelling
reasons to retain our confidence in the four Canonical Gospels (CG):

The GGs reflect a theology alien to
the Bible and more in line with Greek and Eastern thought. For
instance, they maintain that the creation is evil, created by an evil
sub-god. This directly contradicts the Biblical creation account which
holds that God had regarded the creation as “very good” (Genesis 1:31). In
contrast, the CGs do not contradict the Hebrew Scriptures in any way –
exactly what we’d expect to find if God is the author of all.

The GGs are all pseudonymous – falsely
attributed to an Apostle. This was clearly a device used in hope of
gaining acceptance within the church. In contrast, the CGs are all
unnamed. Seemingly, they had nothing to prove and were concerned more
about truth than in gaining acceptance.

The GGs are consistently dated late
into the 2nd century and therefore could never have been regarded as
Apostolic or as eyewitness accounts. In contrast, the CGs are all
dated within the 1st century, even by the skeptics. One liberal
scholar, J.A.T. Robinson had dated the CGs 40-65 AD. The Church Fathers
all contend that the Gospels were Apostolic. Consistent with this, they
claim that Mark’s Gospel recorded Peter’s eyewitness accounts, while Luke’s
Gospel reflects Paul’s sermons.

The CGs were universally accepted by
the church. There was never any indication that the church had ever questioned
any of the four. In contrast, the GGs were accepted by none! No ancient Bible manuscripts
contain them alongside of other NT writings. The only times that a Church
Father quoted them was when he wanted to criticize them. Even the Gnostic
philosophers never cited them as canonical. Nor did they write
commentaries on them. Meanwhile, they did write commentaries on a couple
of the CGs!

The Gnostic philosophers site the NT
CGs as authoritative. One Gnostic philosopher, Marcion 160 AD,
identified his “bible” as containing simply the Gospel of Luke and ten of Paul’s
Epistles. None of the Gnostics ever cited GGs as part of their bible.

While all of the ancient canonical
lists contain the four CGs, they never contain any of the GG.

The Gnostics either claimed that they
had been privileged to have received secret knowledge from the Apostles or
from within. However, they were never able to produce any evidence of
such a transmission of material. Nor is there any evidence that the GGs
were ever part of anyone’s church. In fact, the Church Father Irenaeus
(180) attempted to check out their claims by interviewing a number of
church elders who would have knowledge of any secret transmission of
teachings. However, he reports that they were all unaware of any such
teachings.

The CGs are all God-centered. As
such, even the Apostles are portrayed in a disparaging light. Clearly, the
CGs are not self-promoting, but instead, seem committed to presenting a
factual picture of the life of Jesus. In contrast, the GGs are very
self-promoting. It is only the superior who are capable of understanding
their secret message and of being saved.

The GGs disappeared, while the CGs
remained. The Bible declares that the Word of God endure forever (Isaiah
40:8). This certainly could not be said about the GGs!

Our Lord has promised that He would protect His Word. We
therefore can assume that we have the books that He has ordained.